Re: `tail -f` intermittency

[Eric Blake]

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[you provided only the invalid email address <7252d9cf AT
example.invalid>, so I hope you can read this reply via the same interface
where you managed to post]

[moving to bug-coreutils, which is the address listed in tail --help]

According to dae3 on 3/31/2009 8:54 AM:
> Hello,
> 
> I just wanted to report that `tail -f` - at least when running in the
> background - doesn't always output the latest additions to the watched
> file.
> 
> For example, I always have `tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log` running in
> the background. I just discovered new (not necessarily recent) additions
> to the 'error_log' file that were never reported by `tail`.  This has
> happened to me several other times.
> 
> 
> -----BEGIN VERSION INFO-----
> ~> tail --version
> tail (GNU coreutils) 5.97

This may be your problem.  You are using something that is three years
old, and which has had bug fixes in the meantime.  The latest stable
coreutils release is 7.2; you should try upgrading and seeing if that
fixes the problem.

If, after upgrading, you can still reproduce things, please show us the
exact command line you used to trigger the problem.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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